LOS ANGELES – Before Friday’s game, Manager Don Mattingly joked that there was no “magic Dodger dust” he could sprinkle on his team to turn things around.

That would have to be one powerful substance to fix this.

The Dodgers got a three-run home run from Adrian Gonzalez in the first inning but still lost, 5-4, to the Miami Marlins to extend their losing streak to eight games Friday night.

Of the eight losses, five have been by one run, another by two runs (scored in the ninth inning). But the Dodgers (now 13-21) haven’t held a lead later than the sixth inning since their most recent victory, April 30 against the Colorado Rockies.

Gonzalez’s home run off 20-year-old Marlins rookie Jose Fernandez in the first inning was only the ninth of the Dodgers’ 24 home runs this season to come with a runner on base. It was also only the eighth time this season they had scored more than two runs in an inning.

They didn’t do much more the rest of the night. Juan Uribe was picked off second base to short-circuit a budding rally in the fifth inning and the Dodgers left the bases loaded in the sixth when pinch-hitter Tim Federowicz flied out.

They are now 4-for-28 (.143) with the bases loaded this season – part of the season-long failings with runners on base that has led to 268 stranded baserunners in 34 games. Only one team in the National League has stranded more. But the Cincinnati Reds (275 left on base) have done it while averaging well over a run per game more than the Dodgers.

The Marlins erased Gonzalez’s three-run home run with one of their own by Derek Dietrich off Dodgers starter Matt Magill in the fourth inning. Ronald Belisario replaced Magill with the score tied and promptly gave up three consecutive hits to start the seventh inning.

The second hit – a pinch double by Chris Coghlan – barely stayed in the park. A replay review by the umpiring crew confirmed the ruling of a double off the top of the wall in left-center but it didn’t matter. Both baserunners scored anyway on a Juan Pierre single and a double play that followed.

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